Wilfried Aigner, a senior scientist at the Department of Music Education Research, Music Didactics and Elementary Music Education, talks about music education’s status, lobbying work for the arts, and music teaching in times of crisis and beyond.

The total shutdown of public life that many countries imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic has forced the closure of all musical event locations, from small music clubs to opera houses and on to sports stadiums where concerts are also held..

For us human beings, singing has always been a thing of fundamental importance. Music educators and choral experts, however, have long been aware that the situation with regard to singing in schools has been growing dramatically worse.

Even if isa’s 2020 focus on heroism might initially strike one as anachronistic, the fact is that the celebration and/or rejection of heroes is an immanent part of cultural systems. An ongoing search for guiding figures sees individuals from politics and various sports stylised as heroes, while the term “everyday heroes” is reserved for those working as firefighters and rescue personnel.

In the run-up to the 30th International Summer Academy of the mdw, the present year will also see the Semmering region host the eighth edition of isaScience. This conference invites researchers, arts professionals, and activists of all academic levels and from various academic disciplines relevant to music and the performing arts in general to join in the discourse on “Heroes?!”, this year’s thematic emphasis at isa.

Austrian musicologist Gerold W. Gruber is the founder and head of the mdw’s exil.arte Centre. exil.arte functions as a point of contact and interface for research on as well as the reception, preservation, and presentation of works by Austrian composers, musicians, and music researchers who were deemed “degenerate” by the Third Reich.